Colloquium: Thursday, May 5, 4:25 PM via ZOOM
“Transport Dynamics in Ultracold Atoms”, by Prof. Joseph Thywissen, from the Department of Physics, University of Toronto
The world around us is not in equilibrium, but slowly (or quickly) relaxing through transport of conserved quantities such as energy, charge, and momentum. However, transport is challenging to calculate ab initio, leaving many open questions (such as high-temperature superconductivity) and room for new theoretical paradigms (such as holographic duality). Ultracold atoms provide an ideal platform for the study of non-equilibrium quantum physics, since samples are isolated from the environment, and the strength of interactions can be tuned.
In this talk, I will discuss two experiments that use cold atoms to explore transport dynamics. In the first experiment, we explore how particle-current is dissipated in a perfect and rigid crystal, due to interactions in a system with broken Galilean invariance. In the second experiment, we measure spin diffusion in a strongly interacting Fermi gas. We observe a kind of quantum "speed limit" on the transport rate.
Seen from another perspective, these experiments implement quantum simulations, which are very specialized quantum computations. Although neither error-corrected nor universal, quantum simulators can be built now, can exceed the computational capability of a numerical simulation, and are ready to be applied to important open questions and challenges.
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Physics and Astronomy Colloquia are usually scheduled for Thursdays at 4:25 PM in Room 316 Lewis Lab. For Zoom participation, please see below:
Meeting ID: 972 1274 7894
Passcode: 631869
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